Monday, December 15, 2008

Recent Range Notes, Vol. III

Eagle Creek wound up being closed on Saturday, so the Weekend Shootiness was relocated to the indoor range at Popguns.

I ran a couple cylinders each through my Model 34 and a borrowed Model 18 to keep current on live-fire double action revolver shooting, and popped a few mags through a suppressed Mark II 22/45 and a regular Mark II with a Pac-Lite upper.

Most of the time was spent with the Para LTC 9, however. I did a lot of regular shooting and a bit of strong hand and weak hand work. In the course of over a hundred rounds of mixed FMJ and JHP there was only one malf to report; a failure to feed. The hardest habit I'm having to break from the years of working at an indoor range is standing there like a duck in thunder, staring at the malf. It's not a customer's gun, don't stand there diagnosing it; reduce the malfunction and drive on.

In this case, I was able to pick the culprit up off the lane tray after the string of fire. It was a round of JHP with a Sierra bullet that looked as though it had suffered severe setback; OAL was visibly short without even needing a comparator cartridge to measure against. Obviously I did not try to run it through the gun, but then I tend to not run cartridges that have hit the deck through my weapons. I do this because I like my weapons, my fingers, and my eyes, and ammunition is cheaper than gun parts and emergency surgery.

Anyhow, a good time was had by all. We'd have kept shooting longer, but a line was forming and Popguns only has six lanes, so we started feeling bad after we'd tied up two of them for an hour and a half.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a round didn't get crimped. That happens a lot with cheap ammo like Wolf, or some milsurp ammo. Instead of bouncing off the feed ramp like it's supposed to, the bullet just slides back into the case.

Tam said...

Yup.

Except this wasn't cheap junk. I believe it was Black Hills, but I'm not certain...